Gatecrash

Selesnya troops poured into the streets, emptying the nature temples, wildlife preserves, and other green spaces controlled by the Conclave. The centaurs’ hooves clattered on the cobblestones and the wolf-riders bounded over stone bridges. Human and elf infantry flooded through the arteries of the district, streaming past intersections and flowing around buildings. Griffins and their riders swooped down out of a blanket of low clouds, strafing past the spires.

Emmara struggled to maintain concentration. She rode on the shoulder of a massive creature made of a snarl of marble, wood, and vines, her hand resting on its great head. Two more of the nature behemoths strode ahead of her, swinging their limbs in slow motion, indenting the streets with their footfalls as the other Selesnya troops ran between their legs. She had never controlled this many greater elementals this way. Tendons in her neck were taut. In her vision, the streets before her were overlaid with a constant flow of mana channeling through her and into the three elementals.

Below her, Captain Calomir led the Selesnya army. He rode his white war rhino, driving the Selesnya ranks forward, guiding them through the streets toward the Rakdos horde. Emmara could hear him shouting orders, but she barely made them out over her concentration.

Trostani traveled with them. The three dryads had merged their bodies with one of Emmara’s elementals, over Emmara’s objections, and the great nature beast was carrying them with it into the fray. She could see the three dryads gracefully poised at the top of the elemental’s shoulders, replacing its head, looking down at the troops on the streets below. In all her years Emmara had never seen a Selesnya guild leader go to war. She was the cause of all this. She was the center of this conflict.

This is what it feels like when an entire guild makes a mistake, she thought. This is the flaw of the Conclave, the inability to hear the truth of one voice over the din of all.

The Selesnya army pooled at the entrance of a bridge that spanned a canal. The bridge wasn’t the most direct route to Rakdos territory, but it would take them clear of any other guilds.

But Emmara saw Calomir pulling the reins of his rhino toward another route, up a short flight of steps onto a wide plaza punctuated by a line of stern archways. Above the entrance to the plaza was a sunburst symbol marked with a mighty clenched fist: the sign of the Boros guild. Throughout the plaza, Boros legionnaires stood in plate mail, their backs as straight as the pillars. Sentinels patrolled the ramparts, watching what the Selesnya army would do.

“The bridge, Calomir,” called Emmara. “We must take the bridge.”

“Not the bridge!” Calomir shouted, more to the assembled army than to her. “We travel straight through this plaza, straight to the heart of the Rakdos.”

“Calomir, no!” Emmara yelled.

But the Selesnya army swirled past her to follow Calomir. When the front feet of Calomir’s white rhino stepped across the threshold onto Boros land, trumpeters up on the ramparts blared on their instruments, and the soldiers in the plaza quit their posts and assembled into formation. Legionnaires marched forward, bristling with halberds and swords, backed by archers and pyromancers.

“Conclave, retreat!” yelled Emmara. “We must not involve the Boros as well!”

She saw Calomir glance back over his shoulder at her. If she wasn’t mistaken, he had a slight grin on his face. He kicked his beast and proceeded into the Boros plaza.

Boros soldiers collapsed on the Selesnya front lines. Archers loosed their arrows, and they sailed over Emmara’s head and rained down on the rear ranks. She could hear the screams of those behind her who fell under the assault.

A few of the missiles lodged in the foliage bodies of her elementals. Emmara commanded her minions to spread their great limbs and chests out, to deflect or catch the missiles as best they could. Arrows punched into the bramble-like elementals, most of them simply adding to the wood-beasts’ bulk. One arrow sank deep into the leg of the elemental on which Trostani rode, and exploded with a boom of magical fire. Smoke trailed out of the creature’s limb, and it stumbled.

“Trostani!” Emmara called. “We must turn back!”

“This is our destiny,” said Trostani, all three of the dryads pointing forward into Boros territory, for all the army to see. “The path to harmony is never easy. Lead us, Calomir! Lead the way!”

The Selesnya cavalry crashed into the Boros legionnaires, rending flesh on both sides. Halberdiers pierced centaurs’ flanks. Armored elves slashed through archer battalions. War-priests called down columns of searing light on wolf-riders and woodshapers.

“Senseless,” Emmara said under her breath.